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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28777749">HOLD ON, HOLD STILL</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestblue/pseuds/bluestblue'>bluestblue</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SK8 the Infinity (Anime)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, M/M, almost canon compliant, if not soulmates why red and blue</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:53:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,318</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28777749</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestblue/pseuds/bluestblue</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <b>if you can't hold still, just hold on</b>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>114</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>HOLD ON, HOLD STILL</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>if someone's reading this, are u ok......... it's just ep 1..... /lh</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> “to love another is something like prayer <br/>and can't be planned, you just fall into its arms <br/>because your belief undoes your disbelief.”  </em>
</p>
<p>- anne sexton, "Admonitions To A Special Person"</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Hasegawa Langa detests leaving his footprints in the snow. </p>
<p>The thought of tracks holding and out there for anyone to follow irks him. There are enough shadows that trail behind. Wanting to disappear. Wanting to follow him home. </p>
<p>Made out of fiberglass or steel or wood, snowboards are all the same down the escarpment. Falling freely. That’s Langa has been telling himself since time permits his feet to be strapped on lifeless materials. Ever since he could remember, he always spent most of his days hitting the slopes for snowboarding.</p>
<p>He’s steeped with the peace he feels. Even fleeting. He moves, moves around, moves steadily as much as one can be.</p>
<p>The thing is no one knows they’re escaping until someone calls them out on it: Stop running away. It forces them to desperately find the gateway break. Life undoubtedly has its own way of reminding Langa that there’s no reprieve or bail. </p>
<p>Not because he’s not physically shackled doesn’t mean he’s free. </p>
<p>His feet almost asleep, Langa watches something—a black thing with tires—gliding down the street. </p>
<p><em> Can you stop that? </em>a red-haired boy shouts.</p>
<p>Like the blue paint forced to swirl inside the cup of water, like a rolling stone, Langa moves to pick that up. This time, without footfalls scrambling behind. </p>
<p>Langa stares at the used skateboard—</p>
<p>“Wanna skate?”</p>
<p>Langa does. “No,” he lies, knowing full well he doesn’t know how to.</p>
<p>The red-haired boy turns out to be in his class. He’s name is Kyan Reki. And Reki insists—more like, he taunts Langa with a wide smile. For him to try since he’s already <em>looking</em> at it.</p>
<p>So he does.</p>
<p>Langa convinces himself that it’s just another board to place his feet on. He feels a familiar sharpness as his gaze is down. But this time, the center of his body doesn’t know where to go. He blames it on his muscle memory and his silent trust on bindings.</p>
<p>Falling flat on the floor, the distant laughter doesn’t bother Langa at all. Okay, if Langa’s being honest, it does bother him.</p>
<p>“This thing wasn’t made for people to stand on!” Langa yells at Reki.</p>
<p>“Of course it is!” Reki responds.</p>
<p>It doesn’t occur to Langa to stand up or roll over when Reki begins to slam his foot on the skateboard and the other glides on the cement floor. But the moment strikes him when the board’s already too close to his face. </p>
<p>His body lies flat, hands trying to cover his head—these only lasting half a second. His eyes, on the other hand, are busy staring at the flying—flying!—boy with its wingless skateboard. It’s there and it’s gone. In the blink of an eye, even without a direct connection to the board, the board definitely has taken a leap.</p>
<p>Reki looks back at Langa with a slight smirk. “See?”</p>
<p>His mind becomes blank for a second.</p>
<p><em>This</em>, Langa ponders, <em>isn’t something he’s never seen at snowy mountains.</em> He remembers the first time he does an Ollie—his first trick and the basic one—into the air on a snowboard. Knees bent, body square to the snowboard. His back leg aches, recalling how the countless times of bending and extending to spring off the tail. The rush he feels when he takes off in the air, his muscles automatically sucking his knees up.</p>
<p>That feeling so niche Langa almost knows, at some point, he’s taken it for granted.</p>
<p><em>No snow</em>, his mind reminds him. </p>
<p>Afraid it’ll never be within arms reach again, that one night, Langa abandons the nagging reminder. He pulls the duct tape from the toolbox. He picks up the wrong ‘shabby board’ they delivered. </p>
<p>A knot in his throat rises up when he wraps his feet around it. Even with the do-it-yourself bindings, there are no dark pools of shadow lingering. </p>
<p>
  <em> Best skating… The best…  </em>
</p>
<p>Langa allows it—may be rooted from insanity or fake courage. He allows himself to make the best of it. No one would get that upset if he does his best, right?</p>
<p>Slipping away into the darkness, Langa owns up to it. The theories are there. His feet are not asleep anymore. They’re fastened, but not buried in somewhere unreachable.  </p>
<p>“What’s with the duct tape?” Reki asks in an exasperated voice.</p>
<p>“If I don’t do this—” He tests its security by rocking his feet back and forth, "—it’ll fall off under my feet and it’ll be dangerous.”</p>
<p>Reki—bless the boy’s heart—gives his all to stop Langa. He even warns him with some unwarranted name-calling, “The opposite is true, idiot! Like that, you’ll get totally bruised up when you bail!”</p>
<p><em>But you don’t bail if you’re the best,</em> Langa muses.</p>
<p>“I’ll be fine,” is what he responds. “...Probably.”</p>
<p>Nature has its own way of taking and giving back, Langa learns that the hard way. Given its unwritten rules, this will be surely second nature to him. If not, he’ll be lucky to have a couple of bruises. Or broken bones. At best, he’ll get sore. Everyone does, even the winners. Might as well.</p>
<p>A moment of uncertainty passes by when the competition, Shadow, starts ahead. Way ahead.</p>
<p>With knees bent, everyone almost gasps in surprise when Langa doesn’t move. Not like he isn’t himself, as surprise is etched all over his face. He properly puts his weight on the board, does the right stance. Langa pushes himself with his hands until he sees it fitting to finally stand and let himself be carried through the land while against the air. </p>
<p>
  <em> It’s not the same, it’s safe to assume there’ll be differences. Wait. Just wait. </em>
</p>
<p>Until they shrink and shrink. Until the world opens up to another world that’s vaguely similar.</p>
<p>Unraveling another reality has no exits, so Langa grinds and ascends until he catches up.</p>
<p>At the top of a mountain, Langa realizes why people cup their hands sometimes around their mouths before screaming. It’s the same as when he decides to jump on a wide steel beam—</p>
<p>“Look out, Langa!” That voice again. Renki’s voice. </p>
<p>Inside, he smiles as he leaps through the sky. Everything melts away, his emotions heightening and… He believes again. Falling unfastens his walls tough to climb.</p>
<p>“Don’t bail on me then, Reki,” Langa murmurs as he leaps.</p>
<p>In Langa’s head, there’s a stone in his hand. He casts it to the endless river. He makes it skip, countless times—almost tiring him out. Until, one time, it sinks into the body of water. It tells Langa how snow can also be worn out, but still stays beautiful if he waits and looks harder enough.</p>
<p>Langa even ends up thinking that maybe, just maybe, the bindings don’t exist only to make bailing impossible. Being fixed is a way to set oneself free, literally or not. Existing for the responsibility of attachment, which makes it easier for anyone to leave it all behind as soon they’re unwrapped.</p>
<p>Hasegawa Langa detests leaving his footprints in the snow. </p>
<p>Snow? No such thing in Okinawa. The closest thing they can get is sleets—rain and snow together. Soft and translucent, never meant to stay. Soon as the endless torrent of snowflakes decide to never flow down, everyone drifts to something else. Expansive freedom softly illuminates familiarity in a new world. Not that Langa's ever been afraid of holding still, more like he knows he'd never be able to.</p>
<p>
  <em> Balance. Slide. Jump. Always onward. </em>
</p>
<p>Maybe Langa won’t detest the land and its unforgiving cracks out for anyone. There’s a chance the sun spills through them through the summer—or if he’s lucky enough, he can hold on to its bright rays coming warmly in the form of a red-haired boy.</p>
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